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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

10 Common Errors in Conducting Interviews

You just got promoted to a Senior Executive position. There is a vacancy in your department and your Head asked you to conduct interviews to hire one of the candidates recommended by the Human Resource Department. You have never been trained to conduct an interview before but you went ahead to perform your duty anyway.

Without relevant training and preparation, many interviewers may fall prey to the following common interviewing errors. As a result, you may end up getting the wrong hire or screw up the entire interviewing process.

1. No proper Job Specifications

Is there a proper job description and requirements detailed for the position? If you do not have any inkling of the expectations, you are not able to analyze and measure the candidate’s abilities or past experience against the requirements of the vacant post.

2. No time to study the resume before the interview

This happened very often to interviewers that are not prepared. You asked questions that have answers already stated in the resume. And some try to buy time by repeating information in the resume. You are annoying the candidate by doing so. He will immediately know that you do not have any interest in him and this may result in losing a good potential employee.

3. Talking too much

The objective of the interview is to get as much information as possible about the candidate so that you are able to determine whether he meets the mark or not. Therefore, listening skill is the most important skill here, not your delivery skill.

4. Poor questioning techniques

Are you using too many direct questions in which the candidates can only give a one word reply most of the time? Bear in mind direct questions have its place (click on the link below) but they reduced the amount of information received and therefore did not allow the candidate to express his thoughts freely.

Or are you asking questions that did not serve any purpose? For example, a question pertaining to general interest should basically end with the candidate’s reply and does not need to be followed with say, “Since you enjoy tennis, what do you think of last night’s US Open finals? You reckon Federer had lost his game plan on the last set…?” just because you shared some similarity with the candidate.

Sometimes the interviewer may also ask irrelevant questions just to give him some time to conjure up the next question. Lack of preparation would usually lead you to such scenario. Therefore, framing your questions with a purpose in mind is important.

5. Halo effect

This can happened to even the most seasoned interviewers. For example, when the interviewer finds the candidate sharing some similarity such as growing up from the same town, attending the same university or belonging to the same club, the entire interview can be skewed and you tend to play down on other negative information that may arise. Or, you may have some presuppositions – for example, a candidate that comes from a “Big Four” accounting firm will possess certain qualities and without ascertaining whether the candidate indeed has the qualities or not by asking relevant questions, you assumed he has.

6. Making your conclusions too quickly

Inexperienced interviewers tend to make decisions based on what they feel rather than what they think (although gut feeling should not be ignored). Interviewers’ biases may work against their better judgment – you may be influenced by the candidate’s appearance, grooming or perceived values. Though these are important factors to be taken into consideration but do not be too quick to make up your mind.

7. Selling the job and the company too quickly

To be able to convince the candidate that the position is challenging, rewarding and exciting and the company as a great place to work is equally important but the interview is essentially not about that, at least not in the first three quarter of the time. Do not even start to promote when you are not sure whether the candidate is the right one. Always give sufficient airtime to candidates to tell their story first.

8. No silence

Some interviewers are afraid of silence because they feel awkward about it. But silence is important to allow candidates to think through their answers. So, do not be too quick to interrupt every silence and worst still, provide a statement to fill the silence that leads the candidate to agree with you.

9. Writing notes or comments

Noting down important points so that you won’t forget later is a good exercise but if every reply by the candidate is followed by your obsession with scribbling on the notepad, it hinders you from having good eye contact and smooth flow of an interview that allows you to connect and assess the candidate’s character or personality better.

10. Making impulsive hiring decision

Do not be too quick to make any commitment to hire if you are not 100% sure or if you are not the sole decision maker. As a guide, it’s wiser to allow both parties – interviewers and candidates the time to digest the facts before arriving to a final decision. You would not want to end up apologizing to the candidate later that there was a misunderstanding or giving excuses such as, “I want to hire you but unfortunately, my management does not see it that way.” So, even innocent comments such as, “I think you are suitable for the job” should be avoided at all cost.